I viewed an online lecture by the historian/archaeologist Chris Naunton recently - on Tutankhamun - In Life, Death & Eternal Afterlife. I've watched a few of his lectures to pass the time in the bleak quiet hours in the shop. Always packed full of interesting facts and rare details that I've certainly never heard before. He invariably overruns, quite spectacularly. Apologising profusely every time at the end. I don't think anyone minds greatly, at least no more than him. It kinda makes you warm to his generous enthusiasm to connect getting the better of him, yet again.
I put subtitles on during online lectures, simply because either my hearing or the audio can get flaky. Auto- generated subtitles are one of the unexpected joys born of the internet. Bizzare fascinating misinterpretations of ordinary words and manglings of grammar or syntax. Rarely does it mishear the same way twice. On Nauton's lecture a great deal of inventive translation of the name Tutankhamun took place. My favourite being, what would've be a really great name for an late sixties psychedelic folk rock band - Two Donkey Moon.
December? well that was a very testing month in the shop, wasn't it boys?. Beginning extremely well, but the moment Mr Bungle reintroduced restrictions, everyone went into hibernation. We had an appalling sequence of bad days takings until Mr Bungle hurriedly reassured us - no further restrictions before Christmas. Christmas was not cancelled. Things improved moderately, producing a steady and heartening final week leading up to Christmas and New Years Eve.
In the end December was up by about a quarter on last year, which sounds spectacular. But last years trade in the run up to Christmas was supressed by uncertainty over whether there would even be a Christmas. Instead we had Mr Bungle's last minute contraction from five days to one day of festivities. Lets just say we recovered well. Our Christmas trade, one suspects, could have been even better had there not been a hiatus hernia hanging over it. Each of our first three Christmas periods has been affected by circumstances beyond our control - an upcoming General Election, lock downs or increased restrictions. One year, just one year, it will be completely straightforward. Though I am not holding my breath.
We had three lovely days of Christmas at home just the two of us, the usual homemade nut roasts, gravy, puddings, cakes. Such preparations made a little more last minute than usual. After that we drove over in Barbara for three days of with Jnanasalin's family in Nottingham. Huge amounts of carbohydrate rich food was had by all. By the time we returned home both of us had put on an amount of weight, unmentionable in this post.
Never mind, the new swimming pool in Sheringham - The Reef - opened before Christmas. So I've re-started my regular swims twice a week. I am quite a few breast strokes short of being fit. But after two and a half years without swimming I'm gradually getting my stamina back. The new pool has fabulous modern facilities, its quite a step up from The Splash that preceded it, which had become really scuzzy and unfit for purpose. It took a lot longer to re-open than originally planned, originally due before the Summer last year, then postponed to August. But Brexit shortages of materials and import delays delayed this. Add in the usual pandemic impediments its a miracle it happened in December. Now I'm just crossing my fingers that no future changes in Covid restrictions force it to temporarily close its neat little swim lanes.
Whilst watching the recent Grayson Perry's Art Club about the exhibition in Bristol of its art club contributors, I was interested in the work of one artist who made shrine artworks. I thought, I could do that, make small shrines, to anything and everything. It could be a great way to explore issues, devotional or otherwise, to have a new creative outlet to explore.
So 2022 - what will that turn out to be like? Jnanasalin and I are looking forward to taking a break during January/February. He's going a solitary and I'm going to try practicing a more ascetic way of staying at home. Either side of this there is some tax returning to finalise and send, making prep to be done, a review of our website, planning new lines and suppliers to introduce, and some fresh fabrics for the spring to source. The latter necessitates a jaunt northwards along the A -line motorways to Lincoln and Stamford for a couple of days, to visit two fabulous fabric shops in two of our favourite towns. Yippee!
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| Fassbinder as Fox |
Fassbinder Film Club continues. The 1975 film - Fox & His Friends, is an extremely sad film that, even without knowing Fassbinder's doom ridden back catalogue, telegraphs way ahead the fatal ending for its naif central character. Fassbinder himself plays Fox with both great physical charm, and an endearing trust and innocence. Utilising his own far from passing resemblance to 'a bit of rough'. For Fox is a gay man who has on occasions had to work the streets for a living. Then he wins a huge amount of money in a lottery and falls in love with a rich businessman. Life has suddenly given him everything he'd ever hoped for.
However, the businessman lover is in a tight spot financially with his family owned business. He hooks up with Fox, simply in order to funnel Fox's money into supporting his expensive lifestyle and keeping his failing business afloat. Too late Fox has to face what's really going on. Eventually found dead of a drug overdose in the underground. Being robbed by young children of the last money he has left in his jacket pocket of his lottery winnings.
Fassbinder here is at his most Brechtian as a film maker. Championing the outsider, the downtrodden, the maginalised, isolated and maligned. In Fox & His Friends the moral is very clearly being laid out before you - that any working class person is inevitably ripped off by the capitalist system that will always promise them the world.
I am going to be 65 in June this year. I've had a series of communications from pension providers about pensions that finish this year, if I want them to. I have to decide what exactly to do. Its prompted that New Year desire to sort out a few things that I have been endlessly prevaricating over. First, going through my files of paperwork and having a clear out. My bike needs servicing. I need a new pair of glasses. Oh, the list its getting longer and could turn quite inhibiting and weighty, so let's take this one small step at a time shall we Stee-V.
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